In the next few days, the Diamondbacks are bringing up their top pitching prospect, Jarrod Parker, to work relief. He’s a starter though, so it’ll be “Parker poseur” for all you indie kids out there with dark-rimmed glasses, smoking American Spirits. In 2009, Stephen wrote, “(His) elbow tightness, that caused him to be DL’d on August 5th leading to a visit to Dr. Freeze’s office, is either a bad thing or a precautionary visit. Speaking of which, I’d like to send Grey to the doctor’s office with my fist in his face.” Hmm… That last line totally snuck past me the first time. So, as we all know, no one goes to Dr. Freeze for precautionary reasons. Parker missed the entire 2010 season after Tommy John surgery. That’s a long time to eat Jell-O. Unless you can eat solids after Tommy John surgery. I don’t know, I’m not a doctor. This year Parker’s rebounded nicely. His stats (7.71 K-rate, 3.79 ERA) don’t read like he’s all the way back, but the Diamondbacks are promoting him and will allow him to compete for a 2012 rotation spot. I trust the Diamondbacks’ judgment more than other teams and would absolutely take a flyer on Parker in keeper/NL-Only leagues. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Dontrelle Willis – 3 1/3 IP, 8 ER, 12 baserunners and the last person who still had faith in Willis’ comeback lost it — Todd Bridges.

Juan Francisco – 2-for-4 with his 3rd homer. I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. Lean close to the monitor so the guy reading over your shoulder can’t hear. Okay, not that close, you’re gonna ruin your eyes. I’m gonna like Juan Francisco a lot next year if he comes away with a starting job. I mean, a lot. Hang a big blinking sign on him that says sleeper. You know what I’m saying? Yeah, you do. Okay, now back away from the monitor, it’s getting weird.

Brandon Phillips – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and two homers. I’m pretty surprised Phillips has been healthy and his power (14 HRs) and speed (10 SBs) are so down. At 30 years old, he shouldn’t be falling off already. Bring back steroids!

Neil Walker – 3-for-4. When he hit 2 homers in the first week of the season, I had such high hopes for this schmohawk. He’s now hit 10 homers in the last 22 weeks. That’s less than a half homer per week. A half of a homer is a double. So less than that means he’s stopping between first and second? So useless. I hate you, Neil Walker.

Starlin Castro – 3-for-4, 4 runs, 3 RBIs and his 9th homer. Can we say he was the one bright spot on the Cubs season? Unless you count Big Z wearing a burlap sack muumuu and hailing a taxi to Crazy-ville.

Jeff Baker – 2-for-4 with his 3rd homer. It’s nice, but they don’t play him every day so it’s only worthwhile to note it in very deep leagues.

Brett Myers – 8 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 4 Ks vs. the Phils. I didn’t trust him for this start, but on a more important note. His beard looks like it was art directed by Tim Burton. Or he looks like he’s in The Hart Foundation.

Chase Utley – Scheduled his second concussion test. Guess he forgot he already took one.

Eric Surkamp – 5 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 0 Ks vs. the Padres. He got the win, but this is his 2nd start against the Padres that hasn’t exactly made me a believer for this year.

Brent Morel – Had his 2nd 2 homer game in the last week. My what a fancy mushroom you are! If you’re desperate for power, I could see taking a flyer hoping that he’ll stay hot for another two weeks.

John Danks – 5 IP, 7 ER. My hate for Neil Walker is nothing compared to what I have for Danks. I am Sideshow Bob and Danks is Bart.

Rafael Furcal – 2-for-5, hitting .292 over the last week with 2 steals. He says he needs to get on base to steal bases. Props to his baserunning coach. Teaching some heavy shizz over there in St. Louis. Next lesson: After You Hit The Ball, Run To First. Break it up into two parts so you don’t lose anyone.

Josh Willingham – 3-for-4, 4 RBIs and The Other White Meat now has 2 homers in his last 4 games. When he hits them, he hits them in bunches like Mr. Chiquita Banana.

Andrew Bailey – Wasn’t able to go yesterday because of being hit on the head by a Kurt Suzuki line drive. Bailey said, “I’d be on a stretcher if it wasn’t for those Oakley sunglasses.” Charles Oakley said, “You’d be on a stretcher if you took my sunglasses.”

Miguel Olivo – 2-for-4 with his 18th homer. Speaking of hitting them in bunches, Olivo does too and this was his 2nd homer in four days.

Jeff Niemann – 7 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 5 Ks. He gets the Sawx next which sounds like a sad trombone until you realize he has a 1.06 ERA vs. them in 17 innings this year.

Joel Peralta – Struck out three in a perfect inning for the save. Stop circling your prey, save vultures, and swoop in.

Ryan Raburn – 4-for-5, 3 runs, 3 RBIs and his 13th homer. He’s been so yawnstipating this year it’s hard for me to build up much excitement for him, but this could be the start of a week run of hotness.

Erick Aybar – On Sunday, he went 4-for-5 and yesterday he hit a homer. EA is in the game.

Josh Beckett – Set to return this weekend. We’re left waiting for Beckett to see if he’ll return to lay an existential egg.

Hey Grey just wanted to send a fist bump for all your help this year. Something tells me that had I not been a reader of your blog, I wouldn’t be in the championship with a rotation of Hamels/Kershaw/Romero/Strasburg-Zimmerman/Marcum-Worley/Stauffer-Worley out of the pen. Power has been putrid since my #2/#3 picks had appendectomies in April but with that rotation + SAGNOF I barely needed it.

20 man 6×6 H2H dynasty league with OPS and Holds as the extra cats. We keep 20 out of 25 players based on a tiered system.

I’m in the playoffs and looking to dump one of my players for a stream hitter spot because of Logan Morrison’s injury (and the lack of DL’s this time of the year). The thing is… would you drop Austin Jackson (a CF in this format, currently blocked by Matt Kemp) or Josh Reddick (who can play every OF position) in this format?

@Grey: I can’t quite get the Neil Walker hate…though a friend of mine once said “expectations are the building blocks of resentment.” Maybe that accounts for it. In the meantime, Walker is the 10th rated 2nd baseman by my numbers, which is about what you would have expected and drafted him as. He’s played all year. He is, in fact, almost dead on league average in every category a little heavy in RBIs, a little light in HRs. A guy who wouldn’t win it for you, but also wouldn’t be dead weight or drag you down anywhere.

I say you hate average, not only as a category but as a character description and dood you do dig the long ball.

Grey – H2H semis, his pitching is stronger and has been on fire while my rotation is in slump city. Should I just throw all my guys and hope for the counting stats? Specifically wondering about C-Bills vs ARI and Luebke @ SF today.

1. Pick 2 SP from Minor (v FLA-Hand, @ FLA-Nolasco), Moscoso (v ANA-Williams, v DET-Verlander), Javy (@ WAS-Lannan), and Luebke (@ SF-Cain, @ COL-Millwood). W, L and QS all count, as do IP, ER, K and BB. If I start Javy, I have the same # of starts as my opponent, otherwise I’ll be one up on him.

2. For my last OF, go with de Aza (6 G, including 3 lefties, plus Quentin’s back), Swisher (also 6 G/3 LHP, but he hits lefties better, but but has a tender wing), or Krispie (heating up, but 5 of his 6 G are in LA or SD).

Hi Grey … re: Neil Walker, I think you meant “last 22 weeks” and not “next 22 weeks.” Your stuff is almost always perfect so I re-read it two or three times to make sure I wasn’t missing a joke….

And for my questions:

How many bad games does it take for you to assume a hot hitter is no longer hot? Is two or three oh-fer games enough?

And I have Jesus Montero, who seems to be starting more often than not and playing well. In a 20-team redraft roto league can I safely drop Iannetta (only 2 hits so far in September) for the last 15 days of the season? Or do you think there’s a chance Montero could start losing at-bats and I’ll wish I still had Iannetta?

Grey,
I’ll say it if no one else will: nice Waiting for Godot reference. And on Walker, my middle of the infield this year has been Walker, Kelly Johnson, and Alexei Ramirez, the triumpherate of Bleh. Like Omnia Gallia, my hatred of my middle infielders is divided into three parts.

Did you know that Brad Lincoln’s secretary is named Kennedy and Ian Kennedy’s secretary is named Lincoln?

Both are starting pitchers
Both went to college in the same state they were born
Both were drafted in the first round of the 2006 draft
Both were not coached by Ron Washington
Both were succeeded by Josh Johnson…gosh!

Dunno if yer still working today but, would you keep JJ Hardy at this point? I’ve been rockin Dee Gordon for at least a few weeks now and would like to use Hardy’s spot to pick up some upside, maybe even Jarrod Parker.

@Grey: $260 salary cap. Should I keep Gallardo at $23, or Dan Hudson at $25? Pitchers are wildly overvalued in this league, and strikeouts are king. Yo-Ga is averaging 18.8 points per start, 18.6 per start for Hudson.

just need to be strong the last couple weeks to stay in first. who would you bounce on this team for any of these (suggest multiple if warranted). i have a 10 or higher out of 12 in every offensive cat (r, hr, rbi, sb, avg, obp, gidp) except errors (1 out of 12).

I always find the ad choices on this site to be interesting. Notably, there are 5 Totino’s ads on the current page, and one for Garnier Fructis, which I suppose I will need to wash all of the grease out of my hair after I finish 3 “party pizzas”…again.